


Coercion

by WarriorOmen



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Depressing Themes, Depression, Disturbing Themes, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Hannibal Being Hannibal, Hints of Dark! Will, Mentions of Claustrophobia, Possible Insanity, prison fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2013-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-28 10:58:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarriorOmen/pseuds/WarriorOmen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's hard to be your own person when you can't get out of your own head'-Abel Gideon</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coercion

It started with a leak.

Well, not so much a leak as a gleaming shimmer of crystallized water, hanging just over the precipice of his cell's stone walls. Cornered off at the very edges of a spiders newly spun web; gossamer threads shinny white in the dark.

One drop; just a single drop. Hanging there, poised to fall; break. Splash to the same puddle that had become his life. With little else to comfort him, Will watched that single droplet, studied till there was nothing but the reflection of his minuet,coal pupil staring back at him;dancing with his own gaze.

Then, just as it began to waver, tremble. The spider tired of having to share it's space with such dampened wetness, it evaporated. Dissolved, drifted to the air as though it never existed. Alerting Will's disappointment to the abandoned meals at the edges of his cell. Green fuzz formulating over what used to be a pre-processed tuna. 

“Graham talks to no one' the tuna seemed to say. Though Will knew it was just his memories; faded from his intense focus of the single drop that created the distortion, Chilton's complaint distasteful to Will's tempered ears. Finding solace in the furthest corner, his spiders web a shield from the questions and cold fingers.

Oddly,the spider had not laid any eggs nor taken it's leave of the corner. Staring down at Will as though challenging the other for the space; mandibles clacking the silent language Will did not speak. Defiant to all; arachnids included, Will curled his knees to his chest and refused to move.

So it became that he began to co-habituate with the spider, who sensed that Will would not squish him, curled in the corner to rest, spinning the web further and further,until it stretched far above Will's head. Hanging one morning (or perhaps evening, Will had stopped keeping track of the time) it swung before his eyes, looking questioningly at Will.

He was filthy. Clothes long unwashed that they clung to each plane of his body akin to saran wrap, curls matted by sweat and dandruff, framing the slight beard that had begun to form. Eating became a robotic task of shooting a single arm out for the pro-offered plate, mathematical bites calculated so that he took no greater than what was needed to chew and swallow,before forgetting the task entirely as the sub par meal was consumed. 

Indifferent,his spider spun back up to the bridge of it's webbing, seeming to sleep. Will stared hard at the wide,empty wall of his cell. Concrete and unmarred despite having held prisoners long before himself. Cold seeped over Will's arms, down his back, around his ankles, pushing him from the floor and to the emptied space. 

Squinting, Will fancied he could almost see him there. His reflection. Dark deep set eyes staring a condescending path across the room with a casual flick of a wrist that Lecter might have believed passed for human. Sure had fooled everyone else before.

Including him.

The growl he unleashed from the root of his ribcage was loud enough to shake the floor, banging forth replies in the forms of disgruntled curses and catcalls silencing Will once more. 

Silent save for his brain. Lecter's casual,so sure of him self rough voice convincing Will of his own insanity,how badly he needed him to stay around. Take care of him.

Protect him

Save him

Salvaging the fractured glass of Will's thoughts and mind, rearranging them to a Picasso-esque portrait that would have been fit for Lecter's peculiar,particular consumption and praise. Held to the side in a single finger, so as not to scratch what could now be deemed perfect by the man who sought to claim.

Denying just how claimed it was; just how much of the portrait was now Hannibal's,not his own.

Lurching away from the wall, Will felt his knees collide heavily with the stone. Prompting more catcalls. A guard rapping warningly on the wrought iron bars. Ignored by Will and his spider alike. Scanning the small space for anything that had a point.

It wouldn't take much.

You didn't need something overtly sharp to break skin; as long as it had an edge,you could push hard enough to draw the blood.

Will had been given the usual minimal amenities of life in the small space. His bed a metallic cot, tucked to the left hand corner. Across the room,his spider stirred,watching him curiously with tiny eyes that Will could read nonetheless.

Worn out and a little loose. Will ran both fingers of his right hand down the edge of the first hand leg, finding the small little gaped break in the metal that would serve to aide him. Taking a deep breath,Will found the exact point of contact and broken,sharped razed off edges and shoved the very center of his palm against him. Feeling the eyes of his eight legged guardian on him as he pushed and pushed, feeling the sting of warm blood rising against his flesh,imaging the dull spark in Lecter's eyes; were he too see such now.

“Fuck sake Graham! Stop with your jerkin off and go to sleep!' his closest and most disgruntled neighbor shouted. Will snarled with a curl of his lip,ignoring the voice the same way he ignored Chilton's attempts to get him to talk.

Empowered.

Tools amassed, Will crawled back to the wall on his knees. 

_“It's hard to be your own person when you can't get outside of your own head'_ Gideon's memory reminded him. Nailing the words to the back of Will's brain, swirling in a great cacophony about his eyes; shaking him. Hannibal's eyes rising from the corner of his bed and staring at him, lips raising in the self satisfied smirk Will never knew could form on a human.

A strike outwards,and bloodied fingers touched the blank concrete, swirls,lines, quotes, faces. Will drew everything he knew, fingers dipping again and again to his palm until there was nothing there but torn tissue. Leaving him bereft and unsatisfied. 

Heartbeat loud in his ears,the only sound Will could hear. Locked in the walls of the cell and the bars of his mind. Curling to his side against dust and mildew. Roughened skin refusing to shudder as he drifted somewhere between the past and the present.

Maybe he slept.

Maybe he died.

The two hardly seemed all that different anymore. Until there was noise, too much noise to ignore. His spider hanging just over his shoulder, having spun his web all the way across the back of the cell now. Light assaulting Will's dark-conditioned eyes squirming beneath his sensitive lids. Another voice, another attempt to drag him from the solitude of his own waste and destruction.

Will refused

As always.

'Thank you,leave us” Voice forcing Will's eyes to snap open with pure anger alone. Rage giving him the necessary adrenaline to roll over,rise to his feet. Push himself to the very back of the cell, fingers welcoming the harsh planes of concrete against the crusted palms. Breathing forcing from his lungs in a dull,panting,rush.

Hannibal stared back at him, eyes quickly scanning his appearance and the way Will all but snapped his teeth and growled to him. Little more sophisticated than one of his dogs. Hannibal felt the warning tingles of a displeased curl tugging at his lips. Tampered down only by the need to get Will to come closer. Stench of unwashed clothes and human sweat mingling to the worst assault of the sinuses. Lecter forced himself not to breath in.

How pitiful.

It was then that he saw the walls. Saw the crudely painted bodies, quotes and dinner plates that Will had spent the entirety of crafting as though he were some sort of cave man. Trailing the scent and path to the rust coloured markings on the edge of the cot. Heart swelling with the excited rush of Will in such desperate strengths. How well he would be succeeding when left with only his own thoughts for company.

Such strength quickened the pace of Lecter's blood; spun it like the glistening web of the spider that appeared to have become Will's permanent companion. Knowing that he would be the only one to break the silence, delighting in how Will's shoulders curled and rolled, arching almost unconsciously towards him. Seeking comfort. Something that wasn't all cold floors and dusty walls.

“You greet me like an animal, Will?” Lecter asserted. Voiced like a question when both knew it to be a statement. A condensation. An insult.

'I greet you as the very thing you want me to be' Will retorted. Confident and betrayed. 

Lecter's eyes merely raised, though he let the sentiment drop. Folding himself neatly, pristine and elegant in the hard metal folding chair placed for him outside of Will's cell. Dark green pinstripes a sharp contrast to all the grey. Waiting patiently for Will to crawl to him in need as both knew he would; even for all his hatred and hurt.

It took seconds,though it was more of an incensed stomp than it was a crawl. Stopping only when Will could go no further, forehead pressed harshly to the bars. Cutting indentations to his skin. Silently,he stared. Glassy eyed with poor sleep and desperation.

“You've been without any human contact for exactly four months, three weeks, six days and twenty nine hours” Hannibal informed him,uselessly so. “Chilton's file is a single sheet of paper thick. With only one statement.'

“Delightful” Will interrupted.

“Will Graham is un-copperative” Hannibal continued, entirely dismissing the interruption. “Are you un-copperative,Will?”

'Chilton is unnecessary' Will answered, though there was gooseflesh rising on the back's of his hands,fingers extending and then drawing back before they ventured out of the bars. Defiant. Ignoring his own needs with a growl and stubborn jut of his jaw. Not that Hannibal could see much of the jaw under the beard. 

Which was most unbecoming.

“Perhaps he is. But what do you hope to gain by refusing him and anyone else access to you?”

Will grinned then, arms crossing over the dark navy jumpsuit,staring petulantly down at Lecter over the bridge of his glasses. Wordlessly giving Hannibal his every thought,his ever passionate plea of exactly what he would gain in the end.

“It would seem confinement has not unduly broken you” Hannibal analyzed. Will's deathly smirk forcing his own,admittedly curious,thrilled eyes to find Graham's again.

'You cannot break what is already broken, Dr Lecter' Will countered.

Hannibal rose to his feet then, with a small sigh Will knew was more for show than actual discomfiture. A sad little smile tugging on his lips that brought his teeth into view, the whites glinting under the harsh fluorescent light of the hallway. Even,measured steps to the bars. Halting just shy of touching them.

Wordlessly,he reached a single hand out, the left. Palm up and flat, fingers outstretched to offer and strangle alike. Will stared at it for a moment before the whole of his body relaxed. Hannibal aware that Will wasn't even conscious of submitting so defiantly. But for a body that had gone without the touch or contact of another for so long, it was to be expected.

Mammals needed contact to sustain themselves, and Will was no different. Lecter screamed safety and surety, even as much as he screamed betrayal and back stabbing. Lecter would hold Will in his arms while writing him off as insane to Jack for the salvation of his own security.

Hannibal Lecter was the man who hugged you with a knife in his hands, a razor between his teeth. Will Graham the only living person who knew that too be so.

Yet, he also knew that opportunity was a cousin of lightening now. That if he wanted anything remotely comforting to come to pass then he had to take it from the man who embraced his nuances and broken wires with a blanket and mug of hot coffee.

Will did not so much a slide his hands to Lecter's wider one as he did slam them down in the palm, desperate to make him hurt physically even minimally. It drew a Chesire's smirk from the doctor, and he merely flinched in pleased mockery before laying his left upon the two. Encasing blood and callouses in perfume and lies.

A squeeze came,before he removed the bottom hand slowly, a light draw that made Will's whole body lurch from the owning simplicity of it. Tilting his head almost daintily to the side; Hannibal drew the freed implement up the side of Will's face, holding him steady.

In silence,they stood. Will barely noticing that a new droplet of moisture had developed in the opposite corner. Hovering just over the single unused corner. Graham's eyes were hard but welcoming, need pushing him just those few inches closer. Lecter's hand warming him even if it was false.

“You're not broken, Will. You are stronger and more of yourself than anyone, including yourself has known" shushing him when a strangled sort of choked sob started to rise, silencing it with the swipe of his thumb against trembling lips.

“But you are filthy' letting his hands drop finally. Allowing for Will to collect himself,gather his arms about his body, retaining the comfort that would keep him warm for the night to come. Maybe many more, depending on how long Lecter made him wait again. Hannibal drew gloves from the pockets of his coat, fingers slipping gracefully to each digit. Will's silence all the consent he needed. Assuring him that this man would wrap the noose only tighter around his neck and drag him down in the same breath he claimed to want him.

“Clean yourself' Lecter dismissed. “Destroy the stench' Will hissed as way of answering. Knowing that there was a promise to return in his voice. Even if Hannibal didn't give him the curtsey of saying as much. With careful, poised shuffles; Will returned to his corner. Light seeming to descend and fade as Lecter took his leave.

Alone, abandoned. But not eternally. Will's eyes found the single droplet,that same leak returned for games and glory.

But this time, as he glanced towards it, his spider dozing lazily upon his webs; the drop fell.

And splashed. Silently as the air around him.

**Author's Note:**

> Walking home from the bus one afternoon, I had the insane urge to write Will and Hannibal holding hands through the jail bars. It somehow morphed into this.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Self edited, as always


End file.
